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$750 Daraprim pill now has a $1 generic alternative

Small U.S. firm that makes drugs to order has stepped into the furor launched by former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, whose firm has been buying rights to old drugs and raising their price manyfold.

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Daraprim, the drug that made news in September when its price was hiked 5,000 percent, now has a competitor priced at under $1 per pill.

By Linda A. JohnsonThe Associated Press

Fri., Oct. 23, 2015

TRENTON, N.J.—Stepping into the furor over eye-popping price spikes for old generic medicines, a maker of compounded drugs will begin selling $1 doses of Daraprim, whose price recently was jacked up to $750 per pill by Turing Pharmaceuticals.

“We are looking at all of these cases where the sole-source generic companies are jacking the price way up,” Baum said in an interview. “There’ll be many more of these” compounded drugs coming in the near future.

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The high price of prescription medicines in the U.S. — from drugs for cancer and rare diseases that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year down to once-cheap generic drugs now costing many times their old price — has become a hot issue in the 2016 presidential race.

An activist, Mark Milano, centre, pours cat litter on an image of Martin A Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.
Shkreli has said that his business strategy is to "buy a company that is selling an Aston Martin for the price of a bicycle," then charge a "Toyota price." (Craig Ruttle / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

A Twitter photo of Martin A Shkreli. His company raised the price of one drug from $13.50 (U.S.) to $750 a pill; nowa New Jersey company that makes drugs to order says it will offer a cheaper workaround. (TWITTER)

News that Turing, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and other drugmakers have bought rights to old, cheap medicines that are the only treatment for serious diseases and then hiked prices severalfold has angered patients. It’s triggered government investigations, politicians’ proposals to fight “price gouging,” heavy media scrutiny and a big slump in biotech stock prices.

At the eye of the storm is former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, head of Turing Pharmaceuticals, scorned last month for buying rights to and then increasing by more than 5,000 per cent the price of Daraprim, a 62-year old drug with no competition. The startup drugmaker paid Impax Laboratories $55 million in August for rights to Daraprim, which treats a rare parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis that mainly strikes pregnant women, cancer patients and AIDS patients.

Imprimis, which primarily makes compounded drugs to treat cataracts and urological conditions, will work with health insurers and prescription benefit managers in each state to make its new capsules and other compounded generic medicines widely available, Baum said.

“We’re geared up. We’re ready to go as soon as the orders come in,” he said.

Compounded drugs are typically made to fill a doctor’s prescription for an individual patient, sometimes because the mass-produced version is in short supply or completely unavailable and sometimes to allow for customized formulations or dosages. Compounders don’t need Food and Drug Administration approval to do that, unlike drugmakers making huge batches of drugs on complex production lines.

Baum said Imprimis will produce its pyrimethamine/leucovorin capsules, using bulk ingredients from manufacturing plants approved by the FDA, at its own facilities in Allen, Texas; Folcroft, Pa.; Irvine, Calif., and Randolph, N.J.

Turing’s Shkreli, under fire from all sides, said late last month that he would lower the price of Daraprim, but he hasn’t so far.

A Turing spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday but recently noted the company is capping patient copayments at $10.

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